One-Sheet, One Opportunity: Writing a One-Sheet That Gets Results
Contributed by Adrienne Lake, AMF Guest Consultant
The one-sheet and artist bio are essential elements of promoting yourself as an artist; whether you are booking a tour, promoting an album, or looking for a label, attorney, management, or anything else… You need to have all of your relevant information in one professionally-written, easy-to-read document: The One-Sheet.
Your one-sheet’s contents will be tailored depending on what you are trying to accomplish, but should always include:
- A professional photograph
- Links to music (steaming or Dropbox are best unless you are sending something physical)
- A well-written Artist Bio
- Links to your online presence (i.e. band website, label or management website, publicist website, Bandcamp, and social media)
- Contact information
This needs to be available online or via a PDF. Word documents? Sorry, they are just not professional and polished looking.
Things to Consider
Be aware of your audience. Try to think like the professionals you are trying to reach: the blogger, the promoter, the A&R person, the journalist. What would these individuals want to hear and not want to hear from potential talent? They want to hear about your accomplishments, how you and your music are unique. Now it is your job to tell them why.
If you are booking a tour, your one-sheet will need to include information regarding past tours (i.e accomplishments: other bands you have toured with, festivals you have played). If this is your first tour, that’s OK. Just make sure your one-sheet contains other information that makes you stand out (see my tips for writing a killer Artist Bio here). Tour promotion is important, especially if the promoter hasn’t heard of you. If you have a plan for publicity make sure you let them know, whether you will be doing it yourself or have a publicist.
If you are promoting a tour, make sure all tour dates are listed! Your Artist Bio needs to be strong so journalists will have plenty of ideas for story angles. Be sure to provide three professional-looking artist photos with a dpi of at least 300.
If you are promoting an album, your one-sheet will need to include the album title and tracklisting as well as all relevant production credits, which can be added to the bio.
If you are looking for representation, your bio and accomplishments will need to be emphasized. Give relevant information on albums you have released, successful tours and what size audience you can garner, standout press quotes, and any other notable accomplishments, such as a large number of followers on social media or high stream counts on Spotify.
Quotes! Quotes! Quotes! Pepper your bio with the best short quotes and add the best longer quotes with full writer and media source credit at the bottom of the one-sheet. If you don’t have much press, then go after it: Reach out within your network of friends and acquaintances. Send your album to blogs, newspapers, magazines, websites, and DJs. Follow up with them in a friendly, professional manner.
Good luck. Now go forth, and conquer!
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Adrienne Lake is a music industry professional who has worked in A&R, publicity, talent buying, marketing, and music journalism in the Tucson, Los Angeles, and Austin markets. While in Los Angeles, she held positions at Capitol, Giant and DreamWorks Records, and the latter of which created a Jr. A&R Executive position for her, where she worked closely with Elliott Smith, Jimmy Eat World, AFI and Creeper Lagoon. As a Music Journalist for Arizona Daily Star, she traveled to cover festivals and conducted interviews with John Doe, Mike Davis of MC5, Peaches and more. Lake has been a Talent Buyer and Promoter at multiple venues, including the world-famous Club Congress in Tucson, Spider House, Empire Control Room & Garage and The Parish in Austin and was most recently a Music Festival Programmer at SXSW.
Got questions for Adrienne? Schedule a free one-on-one consultation here.
